


We'll Never Be Free (Until We End Slavery)

by flibbertygigget



Series: Until We End Slavery (Civil War AU) [1]
Category: American Civil War RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: American Civil War, Gen, No one was asking for this, Slavery, but here we are, pre-Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-06
Updated: 2016-01-06
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5649337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Laurens was ten years old, he read <i>Uncle Tom's Cabin.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Never Be Free (Until We End Slavery)

When John Laurens was ten years old, he read a slightly burnt copy of  _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ that one of the slaves had rescued from a public book burning. When he had finished it, he wept so bitterly that his father was compelled to ask him what was the matter. When John showed him the book and began to speak of the horrors contained within, his father slapped his face. He then took the book and threw it in the fireplace.

"My boy," he had said, his voice containing no hint of warmth, "they were only slaves. It is only a story. Do try not to be so irrational."

John Laurens could not help but be irrational. From that point forward he felt as though his eyes had been opened to a whole new world of misery, a world that existed right under the noses of his family but somehow only visible to him. He began to sneak off after his lessons to watch the Negroes in the fields, suddenly aware of the broken slump of their shoulders as they endlessly picked the cotton. Children his age worked long days while he frittered away at his lessons, they ate rice and beans in their shacks instead of turkey at the dinner table, and John wondered why. It was treated as though it was expected, as though it was the way things ought to be, but he felt that something was wrong. None of it made sense to him.

As he grew older, John Laurens only grew more alarmed by the world around him. The entire system seemed to make no sense, but on it went like clockwork, a well-oiled machine that ran on slavery instead of coal. Was he insane, or was it the rest of the plantation that was crazy? He began to actively seek out the abolitionist pamphlets that were sneaked into South Carolina almost as fast as they could use them as kindling. It was simplicity itself to sneak them into his room. After all, who would expect the son of Henry Laurens, one of the most prosperous planters in South Carolina, to be a closet abolitionist. He poured over the arguments, both practical and moral, and he found himself growing more and more convinced by the men that his father would have shot on sight.

When John Laurens was fifteen, he read the results of the Dred Scott case and burned at the injustice. He stayed silent as his father crowed at the fact that "damned abolitionists" hadn't invaded the courts yet, and then John went to his room and wrote his first essay. It was really quite pathetic, a paper born from rage and showing none of the logical, reasoned arguments that John ought to have employed, but it was enough to create a small scandal when it was published under the moniker of "A Concerned Carolinian." John smiled as his father cursed the unknown bastard at the dinner table, and he was grateful that he had been able to sneak into the publisher's with the fee while his father had been away for business.

When John Laurens was nineteen, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States, and South Carolina was the first to secede from his country. John remembered every detail of the moment he had received the news that they had gone through with it, how he had tried but could not hide his despair from his father. Within two months, the war had begun, and his father had ordered him to go volunteer or he would be disowned. John wouldn't have cared, except that, if the Confederation won and slavery reigned triumphant, he could not free his family's slaves if he did not have his inheritance.

John Laurens would obey, but not for long. No matter what the world around him said, he knew what was right, and he was not afraid to stand up for abolition. He would escape for the Union, and then he would join their army and help ensure that they would end slavery. They would finally be free.

**Author's Note:**

> Woo hoo, the Civil War AU that makes no damn sense and no one asked for! A few notes:
> 
> \-- Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe was a super important book that helped popularize the abolitionist movement. It can be read on Project Gutenberg [ here](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/203/203-h/203-h.htm).  
> \-- Information about the Dred Scott case can be found [ here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford).


End file.
